Cuba: 280 Chess Players to Race at the Capablanca Tournament

From April 18 to April 28, about 280 chess players from 18 countries will participate in the 55th International Tournament "Capablanca" at the Cuban National Hotel in Havana.

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The organizers expect competitors from Argentina, the United States, Spain, India, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Peru, Romania, Poland, Colombia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela.

These competitors will be divided into four groups: the Elite one, which will incorporate ten great masters of chess; the Premier set —only integrated by women— the Senior group, comprising players over 60 years, and the open infant-youth "Looking for a Capablanca" set, in which children and adolescents under the age of 16 will play.

Cuban chess champions Yasser Quesada and Yaniela Forgas lead the Cubans players called up for the Elite and Premier sets with over 2,200 Elo points (mathematical calculation to determine chess players' ability).

As part of the tournament’s activities program, Cuban grandmasters Omar Almeida and Isan Ortiz will play multiple chess games at the same time against several competitors on April 24. Other national and foreign grandmasters will also give master lectures.

The tournament is dedicated to Cuban grandmaster Jose Raul Capablanca who remained world champion from 1921 to 1927 and was nicknamed the "Mozart of Chess" and "Chess Machine".

Capablanca, who learned to play chess at the age of four, accumulated 246 draws, 35 losses, and 302 victories, including one at the 1922 London tournament and another at a world championship match against German player Emanuel Lasker.